The other fun side of the trade deadline coming up is the effect it has on teams and what they do to either move guys in and out of their lineup or to help clear out salary space. Waivers plays a big part in that and today we saw yesterday’s waiver players Mike Smith and Steve Bernier both clear. Smith was called up by Tampa Bay and he’ll now join a different goaltending logjam of sorts with Dwayne Roloson and Curtis McElhinney who was acquired from Anaheim yesterday. Bernier could suit up for the Panthers again tonight.

Hitting the waiver wire today are a couple of big names going through on re-entry waivers. Sabres defenseman Craig Rivet and Blue Jackets defenseman Mike Commodore are both coming through on the half-price discount waivers so their teams can try to get someone to take them off their hands for half the cap hit they’d be worth. For Commodore, he’s been through this already this season with no takers. He’s been playing for AHL Springfield since being demoted earlier this year.

Rivet, the Sabres captain, was just waived the other day and now that he’s being put through on re-entry waivers the Sabres are hoping to both be free of him and to give him the chance to play elsewhere this year. Rivet is in the final year of a deal that pays him $3.5 million against the cap. That amount pro-rated works out to be virtually nothing and he could provide a veteran presence on the blue line for a team in need.

Sturm being waived comes as a surprise given that he was acquired from Boston earlier this year to give the Kings offense a lift. He hasn’t done that to GM Dean Lombardi’s liking and injuries have continued to make him ineffective. Boynton has been forced out of the mix in Chicago thanks to the play of youngster Nick Leddy.

Newbury is going through waivers so he can be sent back to the AHL while Belak is likely out of the mix in Nashville now that Jordin Tootoo is back. About all we can tell you about Todd Ford is that he’s got a really bad-ass goalie mask.

PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) As the primary target of opponents over his Hall of Fame career, Wayne Gretzky can certainly empathize with the frustration of Oilers star Connor McDavid.

McDavid and Philadelphia Flyers defenseman Brandon Manning jostled all evening long in a 6-5 Edmonton loss. McDavid denounced the tactics of his opponent after the game, claiming Manning intentionally injured him last season; McDavid missed 37 games with a broken collarbone.

“I guess we can put the whole ‘if he did it’ thing to rest because what he said out there kind of confirmed that,” said McDavid, who taunted Manning after scoring the second goal in the Oilers’ loss.

“I think anybody who knows me or who has played with or against me along the road here, knows that I am not that kind of player,” Manning said, according to a statement released by the Flyers. “I am not out there intentionally trying to hurt people. I’m a guy who plays the game hard and I take pride in that.”

Gretzky didn’t mind seeing that fire in McDavid, saying competitiveness is part of what makes the great ones great. And he said the targeting comes with the territory of being a superstar. It was something he and Mario Lemieux dealt with, too.

“And Connor, he’s going to get tested every night, but this is not new for him,” Gretzky said Friday at the NHL board of governors meetings. “He’s been tested since he was a kid and then playing junior hockey and now in the NHL and he’s always responded and done his part.”

After 18 starts, Bishop is 8-10-1 with a .906 save percentage. He got the hook after two periods last night at Amalie Arena, where he surrendered four goals to the Vancouver Canucks in a 5-1 loss.

Last night marked the third time in his last five starts that he’d surrendered at least four goals, and one of the goals he allowed looked like this:

So, do things feel different this season?

“I feel fine,” Bishop said today, per Lightning Insider. “We go back and watch the games and technically it’s all there. There is really no difference from the way I’ve played the last couple of years to now. I don’t like saying this, but it’s been a strange season with goofy goals on tips and bounces, goals off your own players. So I think if you took some of those away, the numbers would be pretty similar to years past. I would like to get the wins a little higher.”

Bishop, of course, is a pending unrestricted free agent who is unlikely to re-sign with the Lightning. Andrei Vasilevskiy appears to be the goalie of the future in Tampa Bay. On July 1, the 22-year-old re-signed through 2019-20.